Tom McClintock

Monuments are a very important part of our culture, serving as a reminder of our history, and memorializing significant historical events.

The previous administration designated thousands of acres of monument land in Siskiyou County, over the direct protest of the residents and local governments.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. I think you brought this issue into very sharp focus for us.

One more question maybe for the future edification of Mr. Beyer.

The majority of Navajo and Ute residents in San Juan County overwhelmingly oppose the monument designation.

What we found is restrictions on public use reduce public visitation, and the jobs we lose are high-paying, full-time jobs, and they are replaced with low-wage, seasonal jobs.

So, people are fleeing.

Which, I might add, is why Congress, and not the President, is given the authority under the Constitution to manage the Federal lands.

Despite the narrative of my Republican colleagues, our national monuments are popular and will not go down without a fight.

This Subcommittee has set three over-arching principles for this Congress: To restore public access to public lands; to restore sound management to public lands; and to restore the Federal Government as a good neighbor to local communities…

The purpose of the Act was to give presidents the ability to quickly protect archeological sites from looting.

These restrictions have not only killed our forests, they have destroyed the economies of our local communities that used to thrive on the harvest of surplus timber.

No one person should have the authority to lock up millions of acres of land with the stroke of a pen.

Let me say that, any executive action to abolish existing monuments will be met with significant opposition from the American people.

In the last 8 years, the Obama administration used this Act to declare national monument status over 553.4 million acres of land and water.

I hope today the Budget Committee will continue to look to RSC's budget proposals for policy ideas as you begin drafting the fiscal year 2018 budget.

Taxes are often suggested as an antidote to debt, but are not debt and taxes the same thing?

So, we are already approaching uncharted territory for this Nation, and the question I have is that on our current trajectory, are we courting a sovereign debt crisis?

Every American has an up close and personal experience with the economy. They know what is going on in their own lives.

In other words, when the Federal Government borrows a dollar, it borrows it from that same capital market that would otherwise be available to loan to consumers to make consumer purchasers, to businesses to expand jobs.

Admiral Mike Mullen warned us was in his professional military judgment, the greatest single threat to our national security, and that was our Nation's debt.

The deficit is just a future tax. We borrow it now and we pay it back through future taxes.

If most people were doing well in this economy, the Democrats would not have lost 67 U.S. House seats.

We had better be sure that we are prepared to live with the market being created ... that's going to be called `Trumpcare.

There are basically two options that we have. One is to repeal it in its entirety and immediately replace it with the patient-centered free market reforms.